Posts TaggedEarl Blumenauer

Compassion & Choices is honored to be hosting this month’s Palliative Care Grand Rounds–the awesome little (and big) nuggets of great blogging on all things hospice and palliative care. As a consumer advocacy organization, C&C is very big on empowering patients to make their own end-of-life decisions. In fact, it’s one of the main parts of our mission. We’re thrilled that are so many others promoting patient-centered care, too.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the efforts of these fantastic bloggers who’ve done great work in October educating the online community about all thing hospice and palliative care.

Note: there was a lot of great stuff to choose from this month! It was tough to get everything into one post. Please feel free to add more in comments.

With Dumb Medicine: Screening for Cancer in Patients already Diagnosed with Incurable Cancer, Alex Smith posts a head-scratching piece (really, click through and view the image) on the baffling way that cancer patients continue to receive futile cancer screenings. The study which brought this issue to light also hypothesized, “…that neither primarycare physicians nor oncologists routinely engage in the difficultdiscussions that require explanation of why continuation ofprocedures to which patients have become accustomed to is nolonger necessary. There is substantial evidence that evenwhen physicians recognize that life expectancy is limited, theydo not consistently communicate prognosis, and patients mayuse denial as a coping strategy to face impending loss.” Yikes.

Halloween is a holiday that plays up all things spooky, scary and sometimes creepy, at least in the US. But in some places, its a time of year to celebrate and honor the dead. In her post entitled, Holy Halloween: a Day to Dance with Death, Donna Hennes outlines a number of the ways different cultures embrace and discuss death, as well as those who have gone before us.

Finally, a little indulgence. Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) was the keynote speaker at the Compassion & Choices-Oregon luncheon in October. It’s a moving, wonderful speech that speaks to the need for patient choice and autonomy at the end-of-life. Click through and enjoy.

As the health care reform debate heats up in Washington and around the country, opponents of end-of-life choice have launched a misinformation campaign to undermine a key provision of health care reform.

Compassion & Choices has worked tirelessly with supportive members of congress to include in proposed reform legislation a provision requiring Medicare to cover patient consultation with their doctors about end-of-life choice (section 1233 of House Bill 3200).

Anti-choice extremists and their allies in Congress have begun attacking this critical provision, saying it will “promote euthanasia” and that it’s part of a cynical plan to deny health care to the elderly and terminally ill.

GOP leadership has been gravely distorting the truth and misrepresenting the facts about this bipartisan effort, and in the process throwing members of their own party under the bus — those who have reached across the aisle to do something that will help Americans across the nation.

This bill has bipartisan support (the main cosponsor is a Republican doctor) as well as support from a diverse coalition like AARP, the American College of Physicians, and Catholic health systems. It is an area where — no matter from a red or blue state — many have been able to bridge the divide.